Physics and Psychology
by SugarlPlumlFairy
Summary: It is a truth universally acknowledged that the characters of Pride and Prejudice held their tongue and masked insults with circumlocution on multiple occasions due to the expectations of the era... or perhaps it is just me.  How would they behave today?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"Martin, look!" Marie Beltrami silently shouted to her husband interrupting his explanation as to why the oil spill would take longer than what the morning news forecasted.

"What, dear?"

She amply slowed down her jogging to get a better look at the house, unlike Martin Beltrami, who did not notice her change of pace and kept jogging and talking about the spill.

"Martin!" she called again so loud that he heard her through his iPod. "Don't you think it's time for a stretch, Martin?" she asked as he retraced his steps.

"I'm fine, but you go ahead if you want," he replied putting his earphones back in his ears and jogging in place.

Marie touched her toes while looking at the house across the street; one of the finest and most expensive houses in the Upper East Side of Milwaukee.

"Martin, there are people moving in that house! Mrs. LaForge was right! She e-mailed me that she thought a family moved in at last. After all these years, someone is moving there! They must be rich."

"Not necessarily, dear. Times are hard and the economy has forced many people to lower the asking price of real estate."

"Ha! Not this one. Last time I checked on the internet, this house was a firm $850,000 - the same price that it was October of 2008. Those people are rich," she responded as she stood to stretch her arms above her head. "I don't even see any people, just movers, and look what they're moving into the mansion! That has got to be the biggest flat screen I've ever seen. I bet it's 3D."

"Since when are movers not people, dear?" Martin asked to deaf ears before continuing to jog.

"We must meet them, Martin!" she said joining her husband.

Back at the Beltrami residence, Martin helped his wife take off her track jacket as she called upstairs to her daughter.

"Laura! I need your laptop!"

"I'm in here mom," she said from the living room. "My laptop's on the chair. I'm trying to watch The Bachelorette, could you please be quiet?"

Mr. Beltrami looked in the direction of his daughter and saw the paused DVR.

"I take it you came in way too late again last night to see it?" her father asked not staying around for an answer for he already knew.

"Dad, please!"

"Martin Beltrami, now you know Laura has worked very hard this semester. Let her have her fun! Now let's see more about this family that moved in that mansion on Newbury."

She followed her husband into the dining room, clutching the laptop in her hands. As soon as she sat down, so did she. As soon as she opened the laptop, he got up and walked into the kitchen.

"Don't you want to know about our new neighbors, Martin?"

"No," he said entering the kitchen. "And people who live half a mile away don't really constitute as neighbors, dear," he added after retrieving from the kitchen a half-eaten apple and his newspaper from before the jog.

"Oh! Go on upstairs then and read your silly newspaper. Just go right ahead and pass up this important local news right here in front of your face: a mansion not occupied for decades! It's titled 'This Old House, These New, Rich People.'"

"Of course it is dear," he said as he climbed the staircase.

"What's this about old, rich people, Aunt Marie?" Emmy asked, silently taking delight at her purposeful smashup of the words.

"'New, rich people,' dear. I said, 'new, rich people,'" she replied while typing.

"Is that Jillian and Emmy?" Martin asked as he descended the half of the stairs that he climbed.

"Hi, dad," Jillian said smiling as he came down the stairs.

"How was the apartment-hunting, girls?"

"Uncle Martin, you were right. This isn't the best time to look for places. It's way too early. People just haven't moved out yet."

"It's a sign for you two to stay. Your junior year is pretty late to be moving out anyway. Stay until you graduate."

"I would love to dad, but with our situation, I think it'd be a good idea if you rented out Emmy's and my room to get extra money. It's right next to the campus, so you'd be able to make a good amount of money," she said leading her father and Emmy into the den so that they could have more privacy.

"Not this again, Jill," he responded tiredly as he sat in his overstuffed leather studded chair after his daughter and niece sat down on the matching couch. "All my life, I've been able to take care of my girls, Jill. I won't let any job loss get in the way of that now. Just because I'm old and grey doesn't mean I'll let you down. I've had two interviews this week already."

"That's great, Uncle Martin! You know, it's a good thing you're a lawyer - one of the few professions that having a full head of grey hair is very much preferred."

"Yes," he said as he patted his head, "and with this head of hair, they'll be calling in no time," he laughed. "But if you want to move for a different reason, then be my guests, girls."

Jillian and Emmy gave each other questioning looks as to what Martin meant.

"If you really want to pay someone else for room and board, it's fine with me. I would hate to see two of the brightest scholars leave my presence and leave me with one of the silliest girls in Milwaukee, but if you must go then you must go."

"We were just trying to help the situation., Uncle Martin. We'll stay of course, if you were never laid off. We love this place! We wouldn't even have considered leaving, right Jillian?"

"Yeah, dad. We thought it would help. We didn't want to offer you money, right Emmy?"

"Yeah, we thought that it would be kind of weird and knew you wouldn't accept it. We thought that you would have savings, but we didn't know how much."

"Emmy and I thought that this would be a great option."

"Well, girls. Thank you for thinking about the benefit of the family. Your hearts were in the right places and your brains - as usual. You're right. We do have savings, but not as much as I would like," he said looking painstakingly at the floor for a moment. He then shot his eyes back at the girls and continued, "But it is a sufficient amount for an easy living for us all."

Jillian smiled weakly at Emmy, who gave her and her uncle a big smile.

"Of course. We'd love to stay. In fact, I think we are. No matter how hard I try, I can't forget how horrible it was to live as a tenant before I moved in with you guys. Loud music from drunk people, parties in the early morning of schooldays, the empty promises of landlords who take their time in fixing things but want the rent early," at this point, she realized that they were staring at her as she ranted. "What I mean is there's no way I'd go back to that if I didn't have to. Thanks, Uncle Martin."

"I thank you too. You two keep me sane. One thing you were wrong about though: I would gladly take your money and not feel 'weird' about it," he added as Jillian and Emmy lightly laughed.

"You must see this!" Marie shouted from the dining room.

"We 'must' see something," Martin advised in mock astonishment.

As they entered the dining room, they saw a beaming Marie sitting at the table and an equally excited Laura hovering above her.

"What is so important, dear?"

"Martin, Mrs. LaForge was jogging past the mansion on Newbury not long after we were and happened to speak with the neighbors. She sent me an e-mail about the people moving in. Don't you want to hear it?"

"Not nearly as much as you want to tell me," he said winking at Jillian.

"Mrs. LaForge wrote that the house is owned by a Mr. Bando! He's from London too! Laura is looking for him on Facebook right now. Make sure you add him, Laura. Think of the extravagant parties they'll throw! I've always wanted to see inside that house. As soon as you tell him you're a lawyer, we'll be in."

"I'm going back to the den," he replied as he turned to make his statement true.

"Martin! We have to meet them."

"I have no intention on coercing their friendship by dropping that I'm a lawyer."

"A pro bono lawyer! Those types of people will love that you do great deeds for the less fortunate."

"So they'll have to think about their welfare less than what they do already," Laura added with a snort.

"I would try to introduce myself using my profession, but I am merely a housewife and a family like that wouldn't want to be bothered with my occupation," she said dramatically. "Maybe if I would have had a chance to go to college instead of raising two of the most beautiful girls, I could have made something of myself," she added, seeming on the verge of tears.

This was met with a guilty silence from the entire room. At this, she continued:

"I'd like to make an acquaintance with a few of the elite once in a while. Just think of the doors that these people could open for the girls: Jillian could rub elbows with some of the brightest educators, Laura would be thrown in the way of rich and famous people, and Emmy could gain entrance to the best medical schools."

"I think you may be right dear. All the more that we do not meet these people on such shallow terms. Our girls can get where they want in life without the help of the 'elite,'" he said turning to go to the den.

Marie wouldn't let his trek be a smooth one as she loudly confided with Laura - and anyone with ears in the radius of a mile - that she could have married a surgeon who is now retired in Florida and in possession of four Porsches, three condos, a jet, and six grandchildren.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Emmy and Jillian tried to comfort Marie while Martin read the opinions page in the newspaper.

"Aunt Marie, I'm sure you'll meet them soon. The chances of them having a party around Christmas are very likely. And so are the chances that they'll invite everyone in the Upper East Side. Rich people usually like to show of their wealth."

"Christmas? I hope that we would meet them months before then!"

"Maybe Mrs. LaForge could introduce you, mom. She knows much about them, so she probably knows them fairly well."

"Mrs. LaForge would do no such thing, Jillian. You think the best of people, dear which is good sometimes, but I'm certain that if introductions were left to Mrs. LaForge, we would meet them not at a Christmas party but by a lucky accident at the Eater Egg Hunt downtown. By that time, it would be entirely too awkward to speak to them about anything more trivial than the weather, much less getting invitations to their house. Be sure that the only reason that she told me was to brag that she could get the information before me."

Moments later, Emmy appeared in the den feeling sorry for her aunt's ridiculous form of torturing herself.

"Uncle Martin," she said as Jillian entered the room, "I find Aunt Marie's heated overreactions as funny as you do, but don't you think that you should introduce yourself to them? They're not technically neighbors, but what could it hurt? She really wants to meet them."

"I know," he said not looking up from his paper.

"Come on, dad, we should try to be nicer to mom by giving her her way. Especially after what her psychiatrist said." Jillian listened carefully to the muffled ramblings that came from the room near the front of the house. "I think she's calling her right now to tell her that you've stressed her out."

Martin looked up from his newspaper and stood to go back into the dining room. As Jillian said, Marie was on the phone complaining to her psychiatrist that her husband had made her ulcers flare to a fatal state. Marie had an extreme case of ulcers that habitually made her aware of the stress that she encounters all of the time. It should be mentioned that these ulcers were not diagnosed by a profession; in fact, even after several scans of her visceral organs no doctor could find even the slightest beginning of ulcers. Still, Marie knew much better than the physicians that she saw. She had an instinct, and would not give in to the quacks that did not detect them.

"Dr. Hill, I _have _been trying. I've even tried to alleviate my stress by jogging with him." She gave her husband a vile squint as she said the pronoun.

"You're in trouble now, Uncle Martin," Emmy playfully said.

Martin raised his eyebrows and said, "You're right, I think I am."

"And I want to hear nothing more of that stupid house or its inhabits!" Marie exclaimed to Dr. Hill.

"Hmm, maybe in so much trouble that revealing that I met the man already would do me no credit of forgiveness."

Marie put her hand on the receiver. "Don't try that now, Martin. You just want to get out of another session with Dr. Hill. Laura, would you please turn that down? I am on the phone!"

"It's not my fault, mom. The commercials always get louder for some reason," she said before going to the living room to pause the television.

"I would do no such thing, dear," he responded as Marie went back to talking with her psychiatrist. "I have had Dr. Hill's sessions with you for over twenty years now. I am fully aware of whether I want to or not is absolutely out of the question."

Marie piqued to his comment and with that he again stated that he met the owner a few month back. To back up his story, he told them that a close acquaintance from the firm had a client from oversees who expressed that his son was interested in attending the nearby university, as its architecture program is most excellent. Marie was so engaged in his account that she forgot about the psychiatrist on the phone, and did not hear her repeated inquiries making sure that everything was all right. Emmy took the receiver from her aunt's hand and assured the doctor that everything was fine and that if all goes well, she should not expect a frantic call from Marie in at least a few days.

"Ah well, but none of this matters, as you do not believe me."

"Believe you? Of course I believe you, Martin. Did you think that I was seriously upset? Oh, no. I even called Dr. Hill to make my wit seem even more legit. I can tell one of your jokes from a mile away. Carry on."

He repeated what he had just relayed unto them, using livelier adjectives, and bigger words. He did so hoping that this would calm Marie and Laura down. It worked.

"I can't believe that he bought a mansion for one son," Laura said with excited astonishment as soon as her father paused. "He must be incredibly, filthy rich, mom! An entire mansion!"

"I know! His son must be a socialite. It would be entirely unfair if his son was not introduced to the very beautiful, very intelligent, and very single girls of this household. Especially you, Laura."

Martin looked incredulously at his wife and youngest daughter who beamed with excitement and continued with his account, "Mr. Bando thought that his son wanting to be an architect was a perfect choice, I believe that he was pursuing some other major at Cambridge but I'm not too sure. Anyway, he agreed to buy the house."

"And to think, you knew about this for months as I was constantly checking the internet to see if it was still available. Your jokes never get old. And to think, you are to thank for showing him the beautiful mansion and allowing that boy to have a place to stay as he studies."

''Not entirely. I showed him much smaller dwellings, but he insisted on the mansion on Newbury."

"Ah, the boy has great taste. Martin, I knew you were joking all along. It will only be a matter of time before he returns the gesture of kindness to the Beltramis who showed him his dream house," she added while patting her husband on the back.

"Laura, you can listen to the commercials as loud as you want now," he added before once again retreating to the confides of the den.

"Girls, aren't you happy such a man is in our house? You should be thankful that he - _we_ can allow you to become acquainted with wealthy people. At our ages, it is not an easy feat, but anything for you girls. Now, Emmy, I must call my brother to give him the full details as to all I am doing for his daughter."

The three girls went into the living room. Two of the three left after a few minutes because of the viewing choice on the youngest. As they passed the dining room, they could hear Marie talking on the phone.

"Yes, brother she'll be rubbing elbows with the rich and famous in no time," she happily said as she winked at a politely smiling Emmy.


End file.
